Come Nineveh, Come Tyre: The Presidency of Edward M. Jason

by Allen Drury

  “The special investigating commission and the Justice Department have their orders,” the President said. “If we find out, we’ll state it. Walter and his friends can rant and ridicule all they like. We’ll state it and we’ll keep on stating it. Eventually some of it will get through.”

  “But not to enough people,” Senator Munson said. “Never, in these recent years, to enough. They’ve got us on the run, Bill. I’m not so sure as I used to be that we’re going to break through.”

  “We’ve got to,” the President said grimly, “and we will.”

  “Stout words,” Bob Munson said, “but only as valid as the next President makes them.… I only wish Warren Strickland had a chance.”

  At this reference to the humorous, astute and dignified Senate Minority Leader, senior Senator from the state of Idaho and almost certain Presidential nominee of the other party, the President smiled for a second before the unhappy weight of the unhappy day closed down again.

  “Warren’s smart. He doesn’t want it, and he won’t run very hard for it.… And anyway, there isn’t a force on this earth that can beat Ted Jason now, with the sympathy vote he’s going to get.”

  “Not a force except himself,” Senator Munson suggested. But the President shook his head.

  “Not even that. As long as he’s alive and able to stand on his two legs, wave a little, smile a little, open his mouth and state the time of day, he’s going to get it. Ceil gave him that when she went.”

  “Gave him that,” Bob Munson agreed somberly. “And took with her—what? She was a marvelous girl, Bill. She may have been the last balance wheel Ted had. Without her, who knows what he will do?”

  “I’ll tell you what he’ll do,” the President said with a sudden uncharacteristic contempt that revealed how little he really liked the man he believed would be his successor. “He’ll get himself elected any way he can and then he’ll run this country the best way he knows—for Ted Jason. And devil take principle and patriotism and everything else. That’s what I think he’ll do.” Then he sighed and shook his head. “No,” he said, more quietly, “I mustn’t be that hard on him. Mustn’t be so harsh. There’s got to be more to him than that. We’ve got to believe there is.”

  “With Ceil around,” Senator Munson said slowly, “yes. At least there would have been somebody at his side working all the time to keep alive the good instincts, which I think he has, and the good character, which I think he started out with and maybe still has underneath. But now.… I don’t know.” He stared with a sad expression at the trees relaxing limply from the fierce summer day. “I’m really scared, Bill. For the first time in all my years in this town, I really don’t know whether a President of the United States is going to take care of his country. And that’s not a very nice feeling.”

  “I don’t go quite that far, yet,” the President said softly, “but I tell you, I don’t rest very easy, either … which is why,” he added abruptly, pragmatism returning, “we have all got to support him and help him just as much as we can. The country’s been traumatized by these deaths—Harley, Orrin, Ceil, all in ten short days—it’s too much, we’re reeling. And the only real element of stability right now is the sympathy for, and the popular support for, Ted Jason. Whatever our doubts, we’ve got to suppress them for the sake of the country. We’ve got to present a united front for the election and then we’ve got to help him be a good President. And the start of all that process,” he concluded as the sleek black limousine and its whirring escort came to Spring Valley, left Massachusetts Avenue and began to climb the gentle ridges toward the comfortable house where the aftermath of tragedy awaited them, “comes right here.”

  “I know,” Bob Munson said bleakly. “I hope she’ll understand.”

  “Beth Knox?” the President said. “She’ll understand. She always does.”

  Dimly she was aware of noise outside, of movement downstairs; somebody seemed to be coming, but she did not know who it was nor did she want to know. She wanted only to be left alone, to sleep, to forget, to die if she could: she did not want to stay in a world of such horror as had come to her three days ago at the Washington Monument. Thirty years of public life had come to this, and if she had her way, she would be quickly out of it and on her way to rejoin the good-hearted, volatile, impatient and idealistic soul at whose side she had lived for so long.

  Except that she could sense dimly, through the enormous black mass that seemed to overhang everything, crushing down upon her heart and mind and physical being, that they apparently did not want her to leave. They were apparently trying to keep her alive. They apparently were determined that she should stay with them and share the horror, instead of going away. It seemed terribly, awfully, dreadfully unfair. But it was obvious that this was their intention.

  Somewhere back down the day—or was it yesterday, or the day before?—she remembered vaguely that someone had come to the door, looked in, entered, taken her hand gently, said something. Had it been a nurse? Had it been—who had it been? And what had she said?

  With a great effort and for the first time since—since it had happened—she made a deliberate effort to force her mind into some coherent pattern; and for what seemed a very long time, while she again became conscious of some stirring and movement downstairs, distant, muffled, infinitely far away, it did not appear that she was going to succeed. All she could think of over and over, like some sickeningly insistent broken record, was a voice desperately demanding attention—some sort of amused reaction to this—a quick half-heard retort by someone she sensed rather than knew to be her husband—the start of a laughing rejoinder in a woman’s voice—a sound, a flash, a blur, a searing pain in her right side—and then horror, back again full strength as it had returned to overwhelm her ten thousand times while she drifted heavily in and out of sedated sleep. She wanted to struggle, cry out, move, protest. But bleak and awful came the knowledge that it would do no good, and that the terrible dead weight that suddenly sagged against her, spurting blood, would never again respond to human voice or know a sentient thought.

  But now the noises below seemed louder, more insistent; and slowly, desperately, protesting every step of the way yet beginning at last to bow to the automatic disciplines of a trained and well-ordered mind, she began at last the long return to the condition of knowing she was Beth Knox, who had a certain being, a certain personality, a certain way of thinking and looking at things—and a certain responsibility. She had never wanted responsibility again, but the habits of three decades of public life were too ingrained to permit her to drift away forever. Finally they were beginning to reassert themselves.

  For the first time in seventy-two hours she had a conscious, deliberate thought that moved in a consistent uninterrupted progression. She remembered who it was who had come in and what she had said. It was Lucille Hudson, herself only ten days widowed, and what she said was what had to be said, the only thing that could be said to a public wife in their condition. The words did not come back too clearly to Beth even now, but the import was the import neither could escape. The import was Duty; and to Duty, after so long a time in public life, there could be only one answer, and the answer was Yes.

  So she must rouse herself and try. Louise had managed and so had others; and so could Beth Knox. She had been unable to attend the funeral for on that day she was still, although her wound was beginning to mend, in such shock that the doctors would not permit it; and she might not have attended anyway, for hers had been a genuinely close and loving marriage, and instead of going through the public charade the more honest thing might well have been to stay away. It was a choice she had not had to make, so she would never know.

  But now she did have a choice to make, and knowing it, knew her decision already. She could not leave the hurrying world, for all the horror and pain and anguish it had brought her in a second’s frightful passage. She had to come back, for much still depended upon Elizabeth Henry Knox.

  Now the noise and stirrings below wer
e still louder, she knew people were entering the house, knew instinctively that they must be coming to see her; knew that somehow she would find the strength to see them, whoever they might be. With an effort that at first seemed enormous but decreased in difficulty as she proceeded, she raised herself slowly to a sitting position—swung slowly around until her feet rested on the floor—suddenly saw her face in a mirror, red-eyed and swollen with weeping—stopped abruptly and felt for a moment that she could not possibly go on—but did, because she knew she must.

  A few minutes later when her daughter-in-law, Crystal, and Lucille Hudson knocked gently and entered, she was standing and already partially dressed. A few minutes after that, trembling with the physical effort and emotional strain but with head held high and mind steadily clearing, she was able to come slowly down the stairs on her son Hal’s arm and greet her guests as Beth Knox should.

  “Dear Bill,” she said managing from somewhere a reasonable ghost of her old, comfortable smile as she saw their sadly troubled faces, “dear Bob—what can I do to help?”

  He too had heard voices, much the same: somewhere an outcry, exaggerated in its intensity, begging their attention—a quick rejoinder by someone he knew must be Orrin Knox—the start of a laughing reply by someone he knew (though even now he fought himself desperately not to admit it) must be his wife—a sound, a flash, a blur, a jarring impact, momentarily too fast for pain, in his right shoulder—and at his side a strange little cry, a flowering mist of blood, a crumpled movement so fast he could not understand what it was—until it was finished, when it became all he could understand, over and over and over again, without surcease or mercy.

  So passed three days in which the world moved on without Edward Montoya Jason, though high and mighty were the proceedings in his name. Dimly he had been aware—for Patsy had tried to rouse him to go and would have succeeded had the doctors not intervened with emphatic alarm—that a funeral was held. Dimly he knew—for Patsy crashed triumphantly through his drugged cocoon to tell him—that he was now his party’s nominee. Dimly he sensed—though his exhausted mind could not really grasp the fact—that he had become someone very important, even more important than Jasons always thought themselves to be. Dimly he understood, with a great and infinite weariness, that this meant that the world that had killed his wife would now be demanding many things of him. And flatly, furiously, with an almost animal fear, he rejected them all and turned his back upon the world.

  But now three days were gone and this was the fourth; and somewhere below, in and around the big old house in Dumbarton Oaks, he began to realize that there was a stirring, a restlessness, a change, and knew instinctively that it was for him. People were coming and he knew they were coming to see him. He did not know who they were, or what they could want (although Patsy had tried to tell him this morning somewhere in the haze of steadily decreasing sedation), but he knew, as surely as Beth had known, that he must respond.

  Abruptly he had a sudden sharp revelation of where he was and who he was. In that moment, for the first time since the horror at the Monument Grounds, Ceil Jason really began to die and Ted Jason began to live again.

  For what purpose, however, he did not really know as he got slowly and painfully out of bed, his shoulder still on fire, his mind still shuttered, his heart still stunned. He realized now that he was the Presidential nominee, and off in some other world this probably should make him very pleased, for God knew he had desired it more fiercely than he had ever desired anything. He realized also that this meant he must make decisions, choices, resume the active direction of his own destiny and that of his country. But one thing more he realized now, implacable and without appeal, and that was that he must do all this without Ceil. And without Ceil, as he had told her just before they left the house for the last time together, he did not know what he would do.

  Yet it was obvious that he must do something. The noises and stirrings and excited sounds were growing louder. It was apparent that quite a few people must be arriving. He had nearly completed his slow and awkward dressing before he finally remembered Patsy’s words and understood the reason. And then only because he happened to think of the words “running mate,” and remembered finally that he had none.

  Struck by the fact, which suddenly hit him with all its implications, he paused and listened to the babble below and then went slowly over to the window and looked down at the porte-cochère and the winding drive. The parking area was crowded with the paraphernalia of an obsessively communicative age. Sound trucks were drawn up, television cameras were in place, reporters he recognized stood about. The house was under siege and now he knew what he was supposed to do and why they all were here. They had come to report his first decision.

  For a moment he felt a sharp annoyance with his sister, who presumably had arranged it all; but then he knew, with an increasingly swift return of political awareness, that of course it had not been Patsy, it had been the imperatives of the situation. A Vice-Presidential nominee had to be chosen and chosen at once, the moment the doctors declared him able. He wondered briefly why they had not given him more time, but decided that perhaps it was some kind of therapy. Maybe they felt it was best that he be brought out of grief with the abrupt challenge of having to do something. If that was it, he told himself with a certain wryness, it seemed to be working. For the first time in seventy-two hours he was looking forward instead of back. A little excitement and anticipation began to stir in his heart. Who was waiting and what did they seek of him? And what did he, the nominee for President, intend to do about it?

  Carried by the excitement of this he moved back, more quickly now, to the closet, completed his dressing with tie and coat, turned toward the door just as Patsy knocked vigorously and called out, “Ted, can you come down soon? Some VERY interesting people are here to see you!”

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” he called back, sounding, she was thrilled to hear, much like himself again. “Make them comfortable.”

  “I’ve had a conference table set up in the ballroom. I’ll tell them you’re on your way.”

  “I’ll be right along,” he promised and turned back to study himself in the mirror for a moment. His eyes were dark-ringed and sad, his face drawn and thin beneath its tan, but the over-all impression of silver-haired, commanding force and dignity was unimpaired. If anything, sorrow seemed to have made it more impressive. For just a wry, split second he thought: Tragedy becomes me. And instantly was overcome with shame that he could think such a thing, even in jest, at such a time. Sorrow rushed back upon him, adamant, implacable, overwhelming. He sat slowly down on the bed again, his head in his hands.

  “TED!” Patsy bellowed from below.

  Somehow he stood up.

  Somehow he moved to the door.

  Somehow he managed the stairs.

  Somehow.

  “There are times,” Frankly Unctuous said in his rich plum-pudding tones, looking out with a simple candor from the little screen as he concluded the nightly news roundup with the usual portentous moments that were officially designated “Opinion,” “when the world narrows down.

  “Tonight is such a time.

  “Even as we bid one another farewell on yet another fateful day in the onrushing history of this confused but well-meaning land, party leaders and top advisers of Governor Edward M. Jason are gathering at his sister’s home here in Washington to confer with him on the selection of a Vice-Presidential candidate.

  “Few meetings in recent years have been more important for the nation than this consortium of brains and influence. What they say to the candidate for President—what he says to them—the decision he reaches after considering their views and matching them against what he believes best for the country—all will have vital bearing on our nation and the course she is to pursue from now on in world and domestic affairs.

  “Dreadful as were the events of four days ago which struck the late Secretary of State Orrin Knox from his party’s leadership, it is yet possibl
e for many to anticipate a turning of enormous significance for American life. Feeling, as they do, a deep horror and sadness at his loss; sympathizing, as they do, deeply and sincerely with his bereaved family—still they can perceive, awful though the occasion may be, some glimmering of hope for the future that could give the terrible sacrifice a meaning worthy of its shattering dimensions.

  “It could, in fact, well mean an end to all those dangerous policies of foreign intervention, manipulation and war with which the Secretary and the last two administrations in which he served were so closely identified in popular thinking both here and abroad. It could mean the turn toward final peace with which Governor Jason is so closely identified, and for which he had been expected to work as Vice President in a possible Knox Administration.

  “Now his subordinate position has been changed by some hand or hands as yet unknown; and shocking and unexpected as the transformation has been, still it has brought what almost amounts to a revolution of hope to the nation and the world.

  “Now the war in Gorotoland, begun on what many have regarded as the phony pretext that American citizens and American big business investment in that far-off African land had been attacked, can be speedily concluded on a just and honorable basis. Any such conclusion would, of course, as a majority of the United Nations clearly desires, result in the removal of Prince Terence Ajkaje from the throne to which he has now been precariously restored by American arms, and the substitution of his enormously popular cousin, Prince Obifumatta, now temporarily in exile, as head of a truly liberal and democratic government.